Air Force Blue Lines

The Air Force has just announced its intent “to Award a Sole Source Contract for U.S. Air Force Advertising with the Carolina Hurricanes.” The ‘Canes are an NHL hockey team based in Raleigh, N.C.

Of course, there are 30 NHL teams – 23 in the U.S., the rest in Canada, of course – so we were curious why the Air Force wants to do a deal in North Carolina. We also wanted to know how much the service plans to spend. But our questions to those administering the contract went unanswered.

“The contract is for advertising material to be displayed at all 2012-2013 Carolina Hurricanes regular season home games,” the announcement said.

This is what the Air Force gets for whatever it is spending:

1) Five minutes per period of logo recognition on four of the upper eight LED boards located on the Carolina Hurricanes center hung scoreboard and one in game PA announcement

Last week, the Air Force, along with the other services, detailed how it is doing so far this year in terms of meeting its recruiting, ahem, goals:

— Air Force active duty: 100%

— Air Force reserve: 100%

— Air National Guard: 100%

“The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force all exhibited strong retention through the tenth month of fiscal 2012, officials said, and all reserve components are on target to achieve their fiscal year attrition goals,” the Pentagon statement said.

If anyone in the Air Force can explain why the service is doing this deal when recruiting is humming along at 100%, Battleland is all ears.